Wrestling: Core of motivated seniors ready to lead Panthers

Every wrestler on this year’s Pitt squad wants to become an All-American, and this shared desire is the greatest impact the class of 2012 has made on Pitt wrestling.

It’s not as though the senior class hasn’t had success. Combined between the four seniors are eight trips to the NCAA tournament and six individual Eastern Wrestling League (EWL) championships. But despite what it has already achieved, Pitt’s 2012 senior class has even more acheivements planned for the upcoming season.

When head coach Rande Stottlemyer’s Panthers, ranked 18th in the NWCA-USA Today Coaches’ Poll, take to the mat for their first dual meet of the season at Michigan on Sunday, they will have four talented and experienced seniors in the starting lineup of 10 — one of the best classes he’s ever had.

Matt Wilps (197 pounds), Anthony Zanetta (125 pounds), Zac Thomusseit (heavyweight or under 285 pounds) and Donnie Tasser (149 pounds) have a combined overall record of 296-132 and have helped Pitt to three straight EWL team championships.

Despite all of that success, this senior class has only had one wrestler earn All-American status, which comes from a top-eight finish at the national tournament. Wilps finished in fourth place last year.

“No one cares about how many wins you have in wrestling, it’s about what you do at nationals that everyone remembers,” Thomusseit said. “My personal goal is to be wrestling in the national finals on Saturday night, March 23. I think that’s every wrestler’s goal. Why wrestle to take third place? I want to be a national champ, so that’s what I’m training to do.”

Wilps himself acknowledges that he accomplished some of his goals in 2011, but the biggest one remains in his sights this year.

“Some of my personal goals I have achieved is yearly improvement and garnering All-American status,” Wilps said. “This year I hope to improve further by winning it all.”

The senior, who was ranked No. 3 nationally by InterMat, pinned then-No. 2 Quentin Wright of Penn State at the NWCA All-Star Classic last Saturday. The two wrestlers have since swapped spots in the rankings.

With a win of that magnitude, it is easy to see why several of the wrestlers look to their teammates for inspiration. While wrestling is a team sport, individuals need to attain success for the team to win.

“Once you see a guy like Matt Wilps take fourth in the country last year, you want to come out and do that, too,” Thomusseit said. “And that just takes your team to a whole different level when you get everyone wanting to do that.”

This senior class has taken Pitt to a different level competitively, and Zanetta is sure that if the team continues with the hard work and dedication that has made it so successful, re-placing this year won’t be so hard.

“I think Pitt wrestling will be successful for many years to come, as long as they keep preaching the things that make us successful,” Zanetta said. “The coaches realize how fine the line is between success and failure and that is important.”

The current streak of three straight regular-season EWL championships and two straight EWL tournament championships will come to an end after this season, even if the Panthers take both crowns in 2012. Pitt wrestling, like every other Pitt NCAA Division I sport, will be moving to the ACC in 2013.

In InterMat’s 2012 preseason team rankings, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and EWL placed four teams in the top 50. The EWL and ACC’s average rankings for its top four squads were 26 and 28.25, respectively. Pitt is No. 15 this year, only two spots behind the ACC’s best team, No. 13 Virginia Tech.

While the conferences are similar, the ACC will leap ahead of the EWL by adding the Panthers, providing them with a greater challenge.

“The ACC has great competition, and that will facilitate our program in an iron-sharpens-iron fashion,” Wilps said.

With the same “iron-sharpens-iron” motto, the Blue and Gold’s wrestlers train and practice near their limits to gain the greatest benefit.

“I would just say that our recent success has come from hard work,” Thomusseit said. “We have pushed our training to probably the highest it can go and the coaches are around making sure we are pushing ourselves to the physical limit. The coaches gear practice towards the caliber of guys we have on the team. On average, a guy loses six to eight pounds in a practice. We have a hard practice and condition right after so that we get the feeling of being physically drained and still being able to wrestle.”

That hard work isn’t something that comes naturally, and the senior class is stepping up as the leaders of the team to ensure the successful future of Pitt wrestling.

“It’s a hard road to travel along, and for some of these kids, it will be one of the toughest life tasks they will face,” Zanetta said. “You need to be mentally strong and always have a positive mindset, or else it can be a rough road.”

Pitt’s seniors have managed that rough road so far, but with one final season in the EWL left, the Panthers still control what their legacy will be.

“Our senior class is an example of where the program is headed,” Wilps said. “The outcome of the season will determine how big of a legacy we leave with Pitt.”

The 2008 class, which graduated the year before Thomusseit and Wilps arrived on campus, had a national champion and several All-Americans. Despite the success of their teammates, not everyone on that team or the one the year after was striving to be the greatest.

“The mood and the atmosphere [since freshman year] has been more positive,” Thomusseit said. “My freshmen year, we had a team that had a few individuals that were actually trying to place at nationals, and now we pretty much have to get the whole lineup hungry to get on the podium at the NCAA tournament.”